


a boy is not a blade

by bigdamnher0



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Original History & Mythology, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon-Typical Violence, Fencing, Fucking in Caves, M/M, Magical Realism, Mentioned NCT Dream Ensemble, Period-Typical Homophobia, Secret Identity, Sexual Content, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28809042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigdamnher0/pseuds/bigdamnher0
Summary: Donghyuck’s body was not soft. But he had tried to be. He had shaped it so Mark could cup him in his hands and drink.And Mark had destroyed that too.How so like a boy.After a near-fatal duel, Mark attempts penance in the body of another.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 29
Kudos: 171
Collections: Markhyuck Week 2021





	a boy is not a blade

**Author's Note:**

> (hello there, just a reminder to please heed the tags! there is a brief and non-graphic scene involving attempted sexual assault with one of the mcs. if you'd like to skip that part, it starts at "He left the pub with the stranger’s kiss . . . " & ends at "Mark’s father stared infinitely into the field"
> 
> tagged this to the best of my ability; if i missed anything let me know & i'd be happy to add it!)
> 
> "Averno" is taken from Virgil's, _facilis descensus Averno_ in Aeneid, referencing Lake Avernus in Italy, a volcanic crater lake said to be the entrance to the underworld. Translated, the latin phrase means: "the descent to hell is easy."
> 
> that's it, be safe and enjoy!

_“Come to me, said the world. I was standing /_ _in my wool coat at a kind of bright portal—_  
_I can finally say /_ _long ago; it gives me considerable pleasure. Beauty /_ _the healer, the teacher—_

 _death cannot harm me /_ _more than you have harmed me, /_ _my beloved life.”  
_— Louise Gluck, _October_

### The Door

And in the end, Mark had sprinted out the duel room on legs like drawn springs, faster than his saber could hit the floor. He’d lost his dinner somewhere in the maze of gilded hallways, and then a shoe, and then the rest of his fraying sanity. And then he kept running. Mark Lee ran like the tempest they’d christened his combat-style—quick feet, quick eyes, wrists like a hurricane; no one could touch him. By the time he’d stumbled out the school grounds the air had gowned itself dark and viscous as blood trapped in a failing ventricle, and ah—he was drowning. Right here, in his own body.

He’d never been this far out campus. Not even on horseback. Past the craggy hills, until the school and the church’s spire disappeared and the trees rose without end and the darkness plunged into a one akin to the deep sea. Down the trail and further. The path narrowed into a bed of speckled bones and wraith-like leaves. Mark drowned and drowned.

And then: a shore.

Or to be exact—a forest.

That was how he found the door. Not because of any clever wayfinding, but just like most things in life, which found him by accident, such as, among others: losing a mother to a man’s tradition, or falling wretchedly in love with another boy.

 _Rio Abajo Rio. Averno. The Door at the End of the World_. Mark knew its many names, had always shrugged it off as an old wives’ tale, though he’d hoped to find it, on a day like this.

“The books said you were a crater lake,” Mark blurted, and the part of his brain not yet wholly gone with grief worried that he’d been rude. “It’s fine, though,” he added in haste.

 _You’re early_ , the forest said.

It didn’t sound offended, though it flickered vestigial blue, a cottony shadow prickling the mind—like it had been waiting a very long time. _Why are you here?_

“To die— _obviously_ ,” Mark said, suddenly impatient. He’d come all this way, too. “Well?”

 _I cannot refuse you,_ it said—I would hope not, Mark thought— _But once your cross, the trees will take everything. Even your name._

“Great.” Mark nodded vigorously. “That is the plan, yes.”

 _You will trade your body then, to enter?_ It sounded aghast. The shadow encroached, but just barely.

“Uh, sure.” Mark would trade it for less. He wasn’t particularly attached to his body, though he supposed he would miss his toes. Terrestriality was a pain, prone to stink and harm and decay. It was doing it again: remembering. The memory bayed its teeth—a metallic _clash,_ a flood of red drenching his blade, staining his nail beds, and soon Mark was offering, “Oh—you can have my soul, too, if you want. Eternal damnation, was it?”

 _Keep your soul,_ the forest spat, like the thought itself was vile. _What do you think I am?_

“Sorry.” Mark raised his hands, as it sneered—if that was possible, as far ancient pathways to the underworld go. And then, because he was still a boy: “Will it hurt, when I go?”

The earth underfoot suddenly brimmed with thrashing life. A pit of almost-birds, or crawling worms, or— _hands_ , Mark realized, feeling the tender shape of them cup his calves, his foot with the missing shoe.

 _You’ve lived, have you not?_ The shape in his mind smoothed itself out, almost kind. _Then no hurt beyond me will compare._

The pit took him in slowly. Like promised, the earth cradled him, rocked him softly against its belly, under a jagged moon singing its rattlesnake chorus to all of its angels. Birds and beetles and rabbits and snakes. Detritus flooded his mouth. And then: drowning.

Or to be exact— _breathing._

When he looked back, Mark considered the odd sight of his body sinking waist-deep into the marsh.

 _Don’t worry,_ the forest told him. _You’ll make a wonderful bog body._

“That’s kind,” Mark croaked. A gentleman to the end.

Night grew dark, and then darker. When he looked up a shuddering gale had winnowed the sky of all its stars, like someone sweeping out the lights. And then it was his turn. And then he let go.

For the last time, he thought of Donghyuck.  
  


### Rumor Has It

That Mark Lee had gone crazed; that he was born faulty to a whore mother, which left a breach in his soul where the devil could slip in neatly for the perfect day to unravel a boy down to his fundamental human stitches;

That the absence of God had followed him for years, passed down from his father, a Bad, Bad Man, like a sweater; that it was only a matter of time;

That poor Mark Lee was jealous, was bitter, was full of unchecked monstrous rage, after Johnny, corps commander, had selected the lesser fighter for an apprentice; that Mark had called for a duel to first blood—not to the death—which, if he had, he would’ve obviously lost; that other than the scar on Lee Donghyuck’s face—two inches, cutting through his cheek, quite charming in the right light—and the hollow in his right rib—just barely perforating his liver and lung—Mark had been merciful to the end;

That no, Mark _had_ meant to aim true; that he’d slipped on a puddle of sweat and his blade missed; that he’d wanted to rid the world of the other Blakesley boy since clashing wooden sabers in the sandbox; there were no two people much better suited to face the tip of each others’ blade;

That nobody else truly knew the conditions of the game, except for those present: Donghyuck, Mark, and his father, the umpire, who would mysteriously go mute at the mention of any prince-stabbing matters—so why bother with all this talk? When Donghyuck, now chosen apprentice, had not touched a saber in months and walked the hallways like a ghost?

When, between Donghyuck and the lost young earl, it was clear only one of them could still truly be called _alive_?  
  


### In the Garden

It was—for lack of a better word— _nice,_ living in the subterranean.

Well, _living_ , wasn’t quite the word either. Mark remembered the stories: on the day Persephone was taken—and _that_ wasn’t quite true either, was it? Mark knew now that Persephone had _left_ , that she’d turned her back on her childhood garden and its eternity of summer fruits and gilded sunsets, for her mother had not known the true depths of Persephone’s dark wanting. And in that hell she had transformed: rabbit-girl to blood-woman. And when she had learned to make love, the body had stiffened like wax; when she had tried to drink, satisfaction, like she’d known it, would not come.

Who would’ve thought that true pleasure came from not needing pleasure at all?

Again: quite _nice._

Maybe a solid 9 out of 10, even, if Mark would say so himself.

In the stories, Demeter had choked the earth, in grief. The rain turned into acid. Mountains into dust. Dust into snow, and then more of it. So much more of it. Would it be snowing too, in Mark’s home? That was debatable. He’d pushed everyone away, in his last days.

Now that he was unliving, Mark supposed the secret would die with him: he’d walked out of that garden, too.

(Long ago, weeks before the duel room could turn his hands to rust, they had traded kisses in cupboards and he’d allowed the enemy entry into his bed, offering the apple of his body and his love—and Mark had said yes. And Donghyuck had loved him, in all the wrong, tender ways boys like them were taught to be incapable, because boys like them could only hold each other like bottles; to hook barbed hands into the mouth of every good, soft thing until it stuttered, stuttered, blued, gone—

Donghyuck’s body was not soft. But he had tried to be. He had shaped it so Mark could cup him in his hands and drink.

And Mark had destroyed that too.

How so like a boy.)  
  


### The Boy in the Mirage

There was no other way to describe it other than that being here was _healing_ him.

Each time one of its trees dropped an errant leaf on his hair Mark would feel stunned, speech dissolved by its mundane beauty while some awful fragment of his past would melt off his shoulders like snowflakes in the sun. Each day, he was lighter. Each day, some old hurt gone. And he was new again. The streets smelled like spring, saying, _let me return everything you have ever loved._

In his forgetfulness, Averno—and yes, that was what he would be calling it now; _The Underworld_ was too dramatic, and _Hell_ lacked any delicacy—looked so much like his old life. Except that everyone here wasn’t _alive_ , everything else possessed all the right rhythms: Mark drank draft beer at the pub, his usual, and took a small fishing boat out to the lake to watch the small dark fish trail after him; in the mornings he would walk down the pier and watch children draw other chalk-children on the stone streets.

(There was a public duel in the pavilion each Sunday. Mark avoided it like the plague and wondered why.)

This was a replica of his weekends off from the academy. After the third day, he’d forgotten the kind of beer he liked. On the fifth, he forgot he liked beer at all. Nothing here tasted like anything anyway, after you became a wisp of boy, and wasn’t that wonderful?

But sometimes—when he wasn’t looking—there was a breach. A small fissure in the ceiling. And there was sunlight—sunlight!—from the old life, though Mark couldn’t touch it; his fingers missed the gold coin each time. Green leaves would fall through his lap, and he would remember color. A red sun’s glow would crawl into the gaps, and he’d remember warmth. And sometimes, like today: music.

 _Oh_ , the forest said.

Mark was stepping into the pub when he found himself staring straight into the eyes of a mirage:

There was a new table by the back today, occupied by Blakesley students shrugging off their navy blazers as they gathered around a pint. Between them, a cloudy-eyed boy was staring right through him—then into his own hands.

 _Look,_ some meddling voice kept insisting. _Look, look._

“Who’s that?” Mark said. Nobody answered him. A bagpipe was braying joyfully somewhere, everything else blurring with life, except for the boy; his soul was a static note, nearly as still as Mark’s, like a butterfly caught in amber. “He looks—he looks like he’s hurting.”

Mark’s chest lurched. He was sure of it now. It was a stubborn memory, and it had clung to him for days avoiding Averno’s hands. Now it flashed under his rib: heat and thorns and undeniable devotion.

Mark said, “I think... I cared about him.”

Averno hummed under his heels. _You remember._

— _look, look._

Mark nodded. He felt frantic, all of a sudden. “I have to go back.”

 _You want to leave?_ Averno sounded petulant.

Finally, the boy tipped his pint back and slapped on a grin so ghastly, all its edges stitched wrong, that Mark whispered, “I need to speak with him. I have to tell him—well, I’ll figure it out once I see him—”

He felt Averno bristle, teeth and hooks and a gnashing mouth, right by his ear, _You’ve sworn your body to me. It is too far away now. It will take an eternity to fish it out._

“Yes—I mean, _no_ , I can’t wait that long,” Mark said. “Can’t I borrow one of yours? You know, the stuck ones. I’ve seen them. They don’t really belong here, not really.”

 _You speak of yourself_ , it said long-sufferingly, but then, outside the pub, the trees parted for a strip of brilliant meadow. At the center, a cabin. There was a shadow moving inside of it.

_There is one. He is returning soon._

_Hurry_ , the voice said.

As Mark rushed towards it, the shape followed him, a dark oil spill bleeding into the periphery. _Abominations can only walk for a while until they are cast back down to the stink where they belong._

“Ouch.”

_If you are recognized by your old life, you will be returned to me._

“Is that a threat?”

_Are you afraid?_

“No,” Mark said, oddly enough; all his life he’d been afraid. He had almost forgotten it here. Without realizing it, he was grinning. “You are like a friend to me now.”

 _You are a very strange child_ , Averno said.

Mark tugged his rudder north.  
  


### Pat-A-Cake, Baker’s Man

The boy’s name was Sungchan. A baker’s son, stuck between the realms.

“How?” Mark asked.

Sungchan winced as he recounted the memory. He seemed to deflate as he took a seat on his bed and lifted the hair from his forehead. “Blunt force on the head.”

Mark winced, too. “I’m sorry. Who did it?”

“No, I mean—” Sungchan flushed, if that was possible for souls. “ _I_ did it. I mean, I _fell_ , see. Slipped on eggs and busted my head open. Got myself—” and then he flashed a sequence of strange hand gestures that felt vaguely offensive—”bloody _comatose_ , baby. I mean—your Grace.”

Mark winced even harder. “I’m sorry.”

“Ah, please don’t be. I’m no educated earl but kitchen life does have its own fair share of dangers, you know? It happens, I suppose. And you?”

“Kind of—forced my way here,” Mark explained, crucially leaving out the _almost-killed-the-love-of-his-life_ part of the plot. He was trying to leave a good first impression.

If Sungchan could sense the waves of self-deprecation coming in spades, he didn’t mention it. “You’re _early_ , then, aren’t you? That’s rare. You must’ve _really_ wanted to be here then.”

Mark mustered a strained smile. “I suppose.”

“Well, I really don’t mind, you know. You borrowing my body. Just don’t... do anything weird, I guess.”

“And how would you define… weird?”

“I don’t like dairy. It does bad things to me.” Sungchan held his stomach protectively. And then, like an afterthought: “And no murder. Please. I still want to be a free man, of course. Anything else should be fair game. Just don’t tell me, you know what I mean?”

Mark nodded stiffly. “Right.”

“Uh… and I’m new to town, so all my folks are back home, save for my mom, and—well, I’ve always been sort of a ghost, in a way.” Sungchan scratched his ear, smiling; it was quite a handsome smile. Would be even more damningly so, in color. “I guess it wasn’t so different, before.”

Mark frowned. “You don’t plan on leaving?”

Sungchan shrugged and glanced out the window, where the meadow was sprouting flowers—a brand new color for Averno today; either it was in a festive mood, or steeping itself in resentment. “I’m enjoying it here. I could use an eternity or two—you know, figure out what I really want to do with myself before I come back. I don’t think I want to bake cakes for the rest of my life! I mean, what if I want to run off and learn music? Learn to fence and join the king’s court of war? I should have a choice in these things, I think.”

“Right.”

Sungchan stood up and began drawing a map where they’d kept his body. Mark watched him work and thought desperately of the boy in the pub. Already Averno was hiding him away, every last trace of him, under the carpet.

“So,” Mark rehearsed, counting on his fingers, “be good, try not to burn the kitchen down, don’t do anything weird—anything else?”

Sungchan’s face turned bashful. “Well. Uh. It would be nice if you could—make some friends for me, while you’re at it? I’m not picky. I’m just not very social, and...”

A smile tugged at Mark’s mouth. He tucked the map into his pocket. “You and I both, but you, sir, have a deal.” He shook his hand out. Instead of taking it, Sungchan cleared the distance between them with one stride of his hideously long legs and gathered him in an embrace.

“Thanks, hyung. Enjoy the living world for me!”

Mark patted his hair as he was returned to the ground. “W-will do. No choice in the matter, as I am, quite literally, about to live vicariously through you.”

“Now _that_ is the spirit!”  
  


### The Real Winner

Chenle ripped the curtains apart so that a blinding stream of sunlight cut through the window. And then he counted to five. One, two—

“Fucking close that curtain, or _I swear to God, Chenle, I’ll_ —”

“Well, that was quick. Or what?” Chenle spat at the lump, which had begun to thrash like a worm tortured with table salt under the sheets. He kicked the bedpost. “You’ll beat me up? Huh? Strangle me? With those twiggly noodle things you call arms after being cooped up here all week?” He nudged the platter of cheese and moldy bread by the floor with his boot and wrinkled his nose. “This is untouched. I left this for you yesterday. Out gallivanting again? Have you eaten _at all_?”

“I’ve eaten enough, dearest mother,” came the cloying response, “and I don’t have _noodle_ arms—”

Chenle affected an air of pompous grace: “How soft, just like _overcooked spaghetti_.”

“Take that back.” Donghyuck’s furious face finally emerged from the sheets. “I don’t have noodle arms!”

Chenle tossed him his shirt and boots with excessive force.

“Prove it then,” he spat, his eyes lingering more than he’d meant to on the sad state of his friend’s quarters, then added, “Hurry, we’ll miss class. At least try to attend _one_ today. You already missed two exams and an oral for Philosophy.”

“Lovely,” Donghyuck said, sitting up. He wobbled on his feet and wiped the sleep from his eyes. “And?”

“I aced them, of course,” Chenle scoffed, as Donghyuck dressed, lacing up his boots and combing his long hair into something acceptable. “Who do you think I am?”

Donghyuck turned, making a show of thinking. “Someone blessed with a very…. very... _large_....” Chenle’s eyes narrowed, “...head.”

After a pause, Chenle suggested, “Run,” so Donghyuck did. His screech slid brightly across the tiles.

Outside, the rest of the students were already sparring. Dew dampened the fields, and fog fell in slow, thin sheets over the distant hills. The day’s leftover cold settled into Donghyuck’s shoulders, between his fingers where he gripped his sparring sword loosely.

The first time he met Chenle, a gangly prince from a city he could not pronounce, Donghyuck had underestimated him. That was his first mistake. The second was believing the boy’s cherubic grin compelled him easily for _mercy_.

Lunge, sidestep, parry, disarm. The hilt spasmed out Donghyuck’s hands like he was stung before clattering with finality to the grass. Donghyuck was flailing on one foot—all it took was a breeze to send him crumpling sideways with a soft, _oof_.

Chenle sighed. His eyes scanned Donghyuck’s sprawled form before pronouncing his verdict: “Unsexy.”

Donghyuck’s nose flared. “You’ve been hanging around Nana too much.”

“And you too little. You could add a little finesse to your repertoire instead of just lunging like a frilled lizard all the time.”

“Your elbows are too sharp.”

“Your _face_ is irritating.”

Donghyuck gasped, sitting up to clutch his cheek. “How cruel of you, Zhong Chenle—bullying an invalid like this!”

“You’re _scarred_ , you’re not invalid.” He dragged Donghyuck up on his feet, dusting the grass stains from his hip until not a speck was left. “Seems like you’re losing your _luster_ , my dear lord.”

Before Donghyuck could retort, Professor Qian had stepped in. They both jerked themselves upright, side by side. Kun smiled at them both, though it was tempered with something akin to wariness. “Glad to see you finally in class, Donghyuck.” To Chenle, he said, “Care to tell me why your friend is here when he is supposed to be out apprenticing?”

All of a sudden Chenle had lost his tongue. “Professor—”

Wordlessly, Donghyuck picked up his sparring sword.

“I lost that match, professor,” Donghyuck said. He bowed deeply. “Please take care of me today.”

Kun’s eyes tracked the movement—flinty, measured. “Lost? I heard the quite opposite, actually. You’re _alive_ , aren’t you?”

“Actually, Professor—”

“I _lost_ ,” Donghyuck repeated. He kept his eyes ahead, elsewhere. “I’ve forfeited that opportunity, unfortunately. I wish to continue my studies here. And learn from you. I know you’ve served the king, too. Everyone praises what you’ve done in Fujian to this day.”

A smile stretched Kun’s face. He had Donghyuck’s kind of scar, too. It split his left ear in half.

“I train students,” Kun said evenly, “not apprentices of my own colleagues, let alone the handpick of our corps commander. You should’ve been training with them weeks ago.”

Beside him, Chenle shut his eyes and let a breath trickle out his nose. Nearby, Jeno and Renjun had stopped sparring to watch with knowing eyes.

Donghyuck thrusted the tip of his sword into the soft ground and stared hard at the point it disappeared.

“With all due respect, professor, nobody else was there in that room but me.” Donghyuck’s voice wavered, but he held it in tight as a fist to the end. “So when I say I lost that duel—I _lost_. End of the story. Thank you for the class.”

He bowed.

Then he stormed off.

“I apologize for him,” Chenle said hastily after a while. His eyes trailed Donghyuck’s back as it receded into shadow. “He’s not always—well—”

“Is he your child?” Kun said, amused. “I understand Johnny always had odd picks. But I trust his judgement. Set him right before the month ends, if you would be so kind. I have a whole semester to run, I cannot afford to lose my mind yet.”  
  


### Ascent

The path had almost disappeared in the snowstorm of his forgetting. With each step Mark took the old hurts Averno erased began to return: the scroll unravelling Donghyuck’s name; the night in the pub where he’d tried to be soft, the way Donghyuck promised he could be, if he tried enough, wanted it enough; the duel room’s serrated quiet when Mark had—he had—

He gasped. Stumbled back.

Being apart from Averno was ripping him open. His lungs were filling with water again, straining under the unbearable weight of being and all its wet and fumbling and alive.

But Donghyuck was out there, hurting too.

Mark gripped Sungchan’s map in his fist. He took another step forward. Then another.  
  


### The Boy From the Same Gutter

Donghyuck was antsy. Then again, Donghyuck was always antsy during scripture, and Mark couldn’t fault him. Five hours of scripture, thrice a week, with a tired priest piping hopelessness and shame into your ears could weather down the strongest of men. Mark had spent most of those days glancing out the stained glass windows wondering how many seconds it would take for a body to hit the ground and break free.

(“I think three,” Donghyuck guessed, playing with Mark’s fingers where no one could see. “But that depends. What did you have for your breakfast that day?”)

“ _You see, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls . . ._ ”

“These metaphors are just all over the place,” Donghyuck complained into Mark’s ear. “Starting to think this is about _something else_.” Beside him, Mark pinched his thigh. “What? If they can make a logical leap like that, then I can make it about _anything_.”

Jeno, who was sitting on the pew in front, found this immensely insightful and sniggered.

This, unfortunately, did not go unnoticed.

“Young lords,” the priest pleaded. He sent them a damning stare until an assistant professor came over to whack Jeno on the head with a rolled up piece of parchment, hissing, _behave_.

“Sorry, Father,” Jeno muttered, head bowed. When the priest resumed his address, he turned the full force of his smile Donghyuck’s way in a way that meant, _I know where you sleep._

“ . . . _who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it . . . “_

“Must be nice,” Donghyuck mused again. His breath was a damp puff against Mark’s neck. The hair there stood. “To be a pearl of _great price_.”

There was a hand curling over Mark’s knee, making its way to graze the inside of his thigh. All this while Donghyuck kept his gaze straight ahead, nodding every few seconds, to the satisfaction of the priest.

“Don’t you think?” A pinkie, now, crept dangerously close to Mark’s crotch, and this time the force of his balk sent Jisung startling awake on his other side.

“Wha,” Jisung said.

“Stop,” Mark hissed.

“What did I do?”

“Not you, Sungie—”

“Lee Donghyuck,” the priest boomed.

“Father!”

Donghyuck’s hand withdrew.

“The lesson? What lesson do you think the scripture is trying to impart?”

Donghyuck rose fluidly, without pause. “It’s about worth, Father. Our inherent, unbelievable worth, in the eyes of God. And how lucky we are to—be so _loved_ , and still so _unworthy_ of it—” he threw his gaze across the room, before landing for the briefest of moments to catch the secret on Mark’s face, “—how grateful we ought to be. To know we are worth kingdoms and more. It’s a terrible weight to bear. Even I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I’m just a common pearl. What do I know of love?”

Donghyuck sat back down.

Mark stared at his own lap and hid a smile, very badly.

When he lifted his head, he caught a servant’s eye—he’d been watching him by the pulpit—and Mark quickly learned to smooth his face out.  
  


* * *

  
It was not the first time Donghyuck’s presence got Mark into trouble, but it was apparent it was one time too many. When an old Lieutenant siphoned the remains of his power to academia in a last ditch attempt to keep face—there weren’t a lot of places to hide in. Even now, there were eyes everywhere. His father found him once the chapel was deserted and gripped his face so hard Mark had no choice but to look him in the eye and be done with it.

“Do not embarrass me again,” the headmaster’s assistant gritted out with a snarl. “Do you know how much it costs to keep you in this school? Definitely more than what your whore mother had left—”

It took all of Mark to keep his arms by his own sides and nod.

Without warning, his father’s voice went from a jagged edge to something soft and strange. “You forget what matters most. You weren’t raised for mediocrity. You’re my pearl, aren’t you, Minhyung?” he said. Outside, the sun was waning, deepening the old scar on the dishonored man’s face, a severe line from his brow to his hairline. When he spoke again it was like Mark didn’t need to be there at all; he was faraway, dreaming: “You won’t disappoint me, won’t you? You’ll captivate them all. You’ll shine so bright they’ll forget all our sins.”  
  


* * *

  
Donghyuck was wrong. What other lesson could’ve been there but this? To give up all you owned on a gamble that this common pearl could be buffed and shaped and set into some lady’s necklace—to flay yourself whole for what would one day not be yours—would never be yours—to keep?  
  


### New Eyes

And when Mark woke: water.

Cloudy eyes. A murky ceiling. Nearby, the wet miraculous sounds of prayer. Tears, stuck like drying glue in someone’s throat, then a watery voice crying out, _oh dear God, the kid’s awake, call his father, you’re awake, oh God—_

His name was Sungchan, a baker’s son. And he had opened his eyes for the first time in three months.

As Mark—Sungchan now—let himself be swaddled in the strange woman’s arms, he felt—seeing through the strange residual eyes Averno gifted him—the wing tips of her soul unfurl and expand. It pulsed a pale blue. It did not intrude. It only held him quietly.

 _Ah_ , Mark realized. _Love?_

Odd. He’d thought it would’ve been more—rambunctious. More pink? Oh well. It was nice.

Mark let his head drop into her shoulder and let himself selfishly take, and take, and take.  
  


### Legs, Baby, Legs

Doyoung—a fellow cook who specialized in fish and told him not to touch any of the tools in his station—squawked in surprise when Mark hugged him in greeting. _That_ was Mark’s fault. He’d assumed Sungchan was a hugger—his earlier reception helped with that theory—and it was just _nice_ , to be able to touch people without consequence now.

The last time he’d seen Doyoung as _Mark_ , the untouchable young earl, Mark had swiped his breakfast from his platter without word and walked past him while Doyoung lowered his eyes, squeaking, _your Grace_ , and holding his breath. This fear, Mark discovered, was taught. He’d stopped asking servants to call him by his first name after he saw just how they trembled when his father came around; his father, who bore his status like second-skin.

No wonder his father hated how Donghyuck moved through the world. Donghyuck didn’t care about those things. This—wanting nothing more than to pin a boy under your heel—was hereditary.

“It’s most incredible to see you in good health,” Doyoung gasped, once Mark released him back to gravity. “I’m so sorry for what happened. I wasn’t there, but—anyway, you must be sick of condolences. I’m glad you're back.”

“I am too,” Mark said, and was surprised he’d meant it. It was off-centering that he had to look so much further _down_ at people’s eyes now, all his gestures long-limbed, like nature’s most graceful fawn. Stupid long legs. Stupid _gloriously_ long _legs_. He could definitely outrun Donghyuck to the pantry now—

Mark’s blood jumped.

“Where are you going?” called Doyoung.

“Uh—” Mark froze; he was halfway out the door, mid gazelle hop. “Going for a stroll?”

“A stroll! They don’t pay us here to dawdle, you know.” Doyoung passed him an apron the color of dirt and shoved a sack of potatoes into his arms. Lord above—Sungchan’s hands, too, uh. A _marvel_. “Well? We have a hundred nasty little nobles to feed tonight, so get to work.”  
  


### Something Sweet

Either Doyoung was too polite to voice his outrage or he had bad eyesight from his spot on the other end of the kitchen, because it was obvious Mark had never cooked a single thing in his life.

He knew every tactical maneuver in the book, could parry any blade and puncture organs in one breath, but carving the skin off root crop without taking any of the actual _crop_ was making him close to losing his mind.

That was when Chenle arrived. He didn’t knock. He just strolled inside with all his dainty, unbothered beauty and said, “You make the pastries, right?”

“Ch—” Mark bit down hard on his lip and remembered to lower his eyes. “Yes, that’s me. I’m your man. All the pastries. It is I—that makes them. _Your Grace_.”

Chenle blinked at him. The last time Mark had seen him he’d been… not a friend. It felt bitter between his teeth.

“Great,” Chenle said. “Well, I need macarons. A whole batch of them. And then a pie. I leave it up to you what kind. And then a cake.” He thought for a long moment, before deciding, “Chocolate. That’ll cheer him up. He’ll like chocolate. You think he’ll like chocolate? Everyone likes chocolate.”

“I—who?”

“Donghyuck,” Chenle replied, and that explained the slight frazzled look in his eye. “The royal bastard. Don’t tell him that.”

“What’s wrong with him?” And then, remembering himself, Mark quickly added, “I mean—the young lord?”

“ _The young lord_ is in one of his moods I’m afraid,” Chenle said. He picked up a pock-marked potato in front of him and examined it. “Obviously, the only way to remedy a situation like this is with baked goods. It—”

“Reminds him of home,” Mark continued. Again, Chenle blinked at him, like he was something he’d scuffed his shoes on. “I mean—I would too. That’s why I became a pastry chef! Oh, it’s just cozy, you know. Baking scones and cakes and pies all day, every day. That’s me. Just your pastry-loving pastry chef. Um.”

“Right,” Chenle said, after a while. “Well, just serve it in my room, will you? Donghyuck’s place is sequestered so long as he keeps choosing to live in filth and shooing the maids away. _Someone_ needs to make sure he doesn’t run and fall off the edge of the world for another week.” His lips curled in a grimace as he returned Mark’s sad potato, before he slapped on a smile—then left.

Mark stared at the door that was slowly swinging shut. And then he slid feet-first into a full-blown panic.

“Can you make macarons?” he asked Doyoung, who was now draining blood from a chicken.

Doyoung didn’t look up. “In my sleep. But _I’m_ not the pastry chef, am I?”

“Please, I need help. Um. I don’t—remember how to— _you know_ ,” Mark stammered regretfully, dropping his voice to whisper. “I’m still uh—recovering. My skills. And my memories. You know. From my _coma_.” He peeled his bangs back the way Sungchan had and could only imagine the ghastly marred skin from the way Doyoung flinched and went white as a sheet. “They said my brain-body connection, it’s still—”

“Of course,” Doyoung interrupted, dropping the chicken. “How insensitive of me. Well, then. Macarons—” and then he was rinsing his fingers and sailing over to Mark’s station like the messiah himself.

“Thank you,” Mark said, and meant it—quickly realizing now with startling clarity how _wrong_ his father was, about the kitchen being the worst place in the world for a man to be, when Doyoung was here, with only a bowl, a mixture of egg whites and sugar, making the damn things _rise_. Rise! It was magic.  
  


### Reunion

Thanks to all of Doyoung’s miraculous fingers—and none of Mark’s (though they’d made good use of Sungchan’s height to reach the sweet jams at the topmost shelf)—they’d managed to finish everything before sunset. While the pie was browning in the oven, Mark would deliver the platter of macarons first.

He knocked thrice. “Your Grace.”

There was a pause. Mark listened for movement. Nothing.

He knocked again. “Your Grace? I’ve prepared the—”

There was the click of a hatch, and the door swung open.

Promptly, Mark’s stomach fell out.

Donghyuck’s pinched face peered out, frowning. His brown fringe fell over his eyes, the hair at the back sticking out like he’d dodged an electromagnetic field, and his shirt was unbuttoned up to his clavicle. It was a very nice clavicle. Mark had not seen anything quite like it in all of Averno.

It took an eternity to collect his bearings, before he was blurting, “Donghyuck, you—”

One fine eyebrow lifted.

Finally recalling himself, Mark bowed so deeply he nearly upended the whole platter. Was this what a heart attack felt like? He’d lost all feeling in his face. Then: the most bizzare sound.

Donghyuck was _laughing_.

“You’re new,” Donghyuck observed with a toothy grin as Mark straightened hastily. “ _The prince_ isn’t here yet. I’m staking out in his room to avoid my own life, you see.” His eyes glimmered with mirth, then widened imperceptibly at the promise of sugar Mark brought. “And just _what_ is this feast?”

It was unfair—Donghyuck still possessed an easy, messy grace that hollowed Mark out, even like this, when he could smell the sleep from him. Mark wanted so badly to free his hands so he could do something, anything. Donghyuck was right _here_. Breathing, hurting, living.

Even the scar Mark left him looked alive.

“Leftovers,” Mark managed, remembering, at least, Chenle’s strict instructions— _if he finds out it came from me he’ll toss it in the bin, the ungrateful bastard_ —”from this morning’s lunch. I was wondering if the young lord would like to try some. I also have a pie—”

“Have you tried one?”

“Uh, well, pies aren’t—”

“No, _these_.”

“Oh! Uh—no, I—”

“Why not? Try one.”

Mark stammered, “I can’t.”

Donghyuck crossed his arms, leaning against the door jamb. “You can’t? If this is a ploy to poison me, it’s not a very smart one.” At Mark’s stricken face, Donghyuck burst out into another laugh that shook his shoulders and pulled at Mark’s own face too. “Hey. It’s a joke. Don’t cry. What’s your name?”

“Sungchan.”

“Sungchan,” Donghyuck echoed. He gestured with his chin. “Try one, please?”

Mark shifted the platter to his left arm and gingerly lifted the pink one to taste. Lord above; it was delicious. It tasted like clouds. Doyoung was simply beyond comparison, and the man didn’t even know it.

Mark didn’t realize he’d moaned until Donghyuck was hiding another grin behind his hand. Donghyuck said, “Good?”

Mark nodded.

Donghyuck reached up and plucked a crumb from his cheek. Mark’s whole body went hot, then cold, then both all at once. “Good,” Donghyuck said, yawning. The heat of his exhale broke against his skin. The smell had a silvery bite in it—gin? “Well, have the rest. Tell _Chenle_ —” and now the smile turned gleeful, “—that I’m still angry, and that it’ll take more than plying me with sweets to convince me to run off with Johnny, handsome as he is. Tell him he’s stuck with me _forever_!”

“Chenle didn’t—”

“You’re a darling, Sungchan!”

The door shut in his face.

The hinges rattled for a while before the hallway went still. Mark had thought all his memories had returned, but how could he have forgotten? Just how unholy and impossibly _infuriating_ Donghyuck could make him?

 _This is what you crawled out of Averno for_ , a sour thought reminded, in his own voice.

Mark grinned widely, thinking, _yes, yes it is_ —and remembered the sweet drop of everything else, hoarding it quickly before it could melt.  
  


### The Last Summer

There was a portal in the chateau during the summer socials, where every girl would enter and emerge still-born, while every true Blakesley boy emerged a _man_ ; which was to say, this was what that summer did to children on the brink of duty, stuffing every good thing in their mouths before they had to spit out all the bones in lieu of what mattered most.

It was summer, soon the corps would recruit, and Mark couldn’t stop looking at the boy everyone wanted him to hate.

Donghyuck was standing there by the vineyard, his friends engorging themselves on all his tales. Along with Mark, he was the favored Blakesley champion, in the running for the commander’s favor to win a seat in the king’s court, and oh, wasn’t that wonderful, wasn’t that what any living boy would want, to die in a war and be made myth. But more than anything, what Mark coveted most was that laughter—the way Donghyuck could pitch his head back and laugh like this moment was his, like he could stretch it out forever.

Well, at least Mark wasn’t a _lady_ ; Mina stole him into one of the rooms with a wide-eyed stare that meant the sharks had arrived, and she needed help staving them off while they were let loose in the chateau to leer at fresh blood. It was just conversation, in the beginning—a dance, a friendly chess game by the villa to ward suitors—but it was clear Mina needed something drastic if she wanted _out_. And she wanted it silly, wanted to smear her own name from society so badly there was no other choice but to cut her free.

 _Sorry_ , she’d said, sheepishly locking the door behind her. _I’ll tell them I forced myself on you._

It was all pretend, of course. Mina moaned into her hands. On the other side of the room, Mark stilted a smile and began rocking the bed against the wall, loud enough all her suitors in the chateau would’ve heard, no doubt about it—even Donghyuck, too, who they’d stumbled into in their haste; their eyes met as Donghyuck pulled two giggling ladies into his lap in the lounge with ease. Their pale hands had pushed his shirt up, exposing a strip of sun-browned skin. All that gallivanting was showing, turning him scruffy and unbearable and not Mark’s.

Mark shook the bed harder.

Either way, it was useless to talk pleasantries when Mina was trying to turn her throat inside out.

It was summer, Johnny was coming to pick an apprentice, and Donghyuck would’ve been every inch the perfect Blakesley boy, had he hated Mark, too.

 _Look at you,_ Donghyuck said—surprising Mark, who’d just crawled out the room feeling unmoored. Slumped against the wall, Donghyuck whistled at him. His breath smelled like the bar, his jaw mottled with kisses, and the sight of his open shirt left Mark bramble-throated. _A true Blakesley you’ve become. I’m so proud I think I could cry. Was it good? Was it just perfect? Did you fuck her perfectly, your Grace?_

_What do you want, Lee?_

Donghyuck’s face shunted into shadow. It was summer, there was a portal in the chateau, and in the lamplight each of Donghyuck’s freckles trembled like stars wanting to unwish themselves.

Donghyuck pushed himself off the wall so fast Mark thought he was going to be hit. And then: cold fingers around his wrist, tugging him down the hallway, faster and faster, out the door where a storm was brewing and into an elsewhere only Donghyuck knew.

_Come with me._

They wouldn’t be boys on the other side anymore.  
  


### Buttercream, Part One

So Mark baked. Or rather—Doyoung did, and Mark watched, but he also learned to separate eggs and preserve fruit and stoke the coals for the perfect fire. Each week, he’d deliver pie and cookies and cake. Each time, Donghyuck would taste one and refuse the rest. _Try one_ , he commanded instead, eyes bright as Sungchan licked the sugar from his fingers.

“I should poison him,” Chenle suggested frostily, after Mark broke out the news.

“He ate two more this time—”

“Put arsenic in the fucking pie, I don’t care.”

“But you love him,” Mark observed.

Chenle looked poleaxed. “ _Huh?_ ”

Mark quickly amended, “I mean—maybe we should try something else. Something other than pies. Shortbread cookies—they should work.”

“Cookies?”

“The ones with buttercream in them. His sister used to make them.”

“His _sister?_ ” Chenle’s voice rose. “He told you about his sister?”

“Uh—” Apparently, Mark’s brain decided now was a good time to blow him a kiss and free-dive off a cliff. The memory shouldered itself into the front seat of his skull, so Mark could rewatch the night they’d snuck into the kitchens, drunk out of their minds and Donghyuck even more so, missing his sister like he was missing a limb—they’d melted cold butter between their mouths and made such a deliriously sticky mess, and— “Yes?”

Chenle stared at him—perplexed, and then pensive, and then worried. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose. “He’s getting _worse_.” He gestured for Mark to carry on. “Well, fine. Alright. Buttercream. Let’s try that. And then, when he’s in a good mood, make sure to give him this.”

It was a letter. The commander’s vermillion seal was unmistakable: _Johnny_. Mark’s palms went clammy. He’d wanted this letter for so long, had dreamt of it—or had he?—but now that it was here, the jealousy fit him uncomfortably, like he was standing in wet socks out in the cold. He wanted to toss it into the coals.

He took the letter.

“We’ll break him in bit by bit, Sungchan,” Chenle promised, squeezing his shoulder.  
  


### Buttercream, Part Two

“Oh no, let me try that,” Donghyuck bemoaned, eyes brightening when he saw what Mark had for him this week; lately he swung his door open at the first knock, like he’d sprung out of bed at the sound, waiting for it; like Sungchan was the best part of his day. _Or the only part_ , Mark thought, considering Donghyuck’s rumpled dress shirt—the same one he’d worn yesterday.

“Feed me.” Donghyuck parted his pink mouth slowly— _ahhh_.

It was damning. But Mark had to, if only for Doyoung, who had promised him, _I’m no pastry chef, I really don’t have the essentials_ , only to go on and create what would be the world’s most perfect, most exquisite filling; Mark almost teared up.

Mark lifted the edge of the pastry into Donghyuck’s lips and watched him bite down. The cream swelled out, but he caught it in his tongue with mind-numbing efficiency.

“Sungchan,” Donghyuck began, swallowing. His voice was gravel. He looked up at him. “That… _that_ was the best one yet. Lord above. You have such skillful hands.”

It was embarrassing how easily that unravelled him. Mark ducked his head quickly. “You are too kind, your Grace.”

“Doyoung just calls me _Donghyuck_ ,” Donghyuck said. “You should too.”

And then he walked back inside, leaving the door wide open. Mark hovered there with his small tray for a moment until the voice boomed from inside, “ _Well_ , you’ll bring them in, won’t you?”

Mark almost tripped on his own feet doing so.

The bubble of elation grew inside him, now that he finally had Donghyuck alone. And just as quickly, it popped. Inside, the stench of sadness was everywhere. Donghyuck’s room was drenched in it; Mark’s new eyes could see the residue his soul left everywhere like a snail’s droopy trail, bogging everything down. Everywhere, week-old clothes and socks. Cutlery piled beside the bed, over a wine-stained rug. On the study table a thin layer of dust collected at the top, untouched. At the center of the bed—unmade and reeking of too much sleep—was a leatherbound journal. Mark knew that journal. He’d given it to him as a gift when they were sixteen.

He’d engraved Donghyuck’s name on the cover himself. Who knew leaving marks in people would be a pathological pattern of his?

Donghyuck caught him staring. “Chenle said I should keep writing,” he explained, the edges of his mouth hiking up. “Said it helps me manage my—” something twisted his mouth, “—outbursts.”

Mark set the platter down on the bedside table and fought back a dizzying spell of self-hatred. Why was he here? He wasn’t so sure anymore.

“You know,” Donghyuck was saying. He was sitting by the window, watching younger students kick a ball between them in the courtyard. “You don’t have to pretend around me. I understand if you… find us distasteful. All we do is eat and sleep and play our posh boys’ bloody sport. Swinging around that sharp stick for the king. It’s a disease. I would hate us too.”

“I don’t hate you, your Grace,” Mark said.

“Just Donghyuck, remember?”

“Right—sorry. Donghyuck.” That seemed to please him. “I don’t—dislike you. I mean, you can’t help it, if you were born with such insidious wealth that you don’t know what to do with it. I’d go crazy, too. Enough to go around sticking sharp things into people.”

That was a bad joke. Mark paled instantly. But Donghyuck’s brow only lifted, the way it did when something surprised him.

“A keen eye, too.” Then he opened his mouth and made another bright sound. _Ahhh_. “More, please?”

 _Cute_ , Mark thought angrily, considering the deep cut of Donghyuck’s cupid’s bow—angry, because was this what he liked to do? Herd random boys into his room to hand-feed him sweets?

Begrudgingly, Mark delivered him the dessert. He looked away this time.

“I’ll swear on that cream. It is _ridiculously_ good. What’d you put in it? Cocaine?”

Mark’s eyes widened. “Of course not. Just sugar, uh, vanilla—”

Donghyuck was laughing again—silver bells in the air—until something sobered him. “Sungchan, did anyone ever tell you that—” and then he shook his head. The smile was back, the one from the pub, the edges all smoothed out and wrong. He looked out the window again. Outside, the ball clipped a student in the face and he fell, yelping. “Do you ever daydream?”

“Daydream?”

“Daydream,” Donghyuck echoed. “You have those, don’t you? What do you dream about? Tell me—what would you do, if you didn’t have to bake cakes for posh little shits like me?”

The question startled Mark. His eyes drifted across the room until his eye caught it. And only because he could not imagine a life where he wasn’t marked by all that hurt—because it was all of him, even now, even after Averno tried to scrub it out from under his nails, and _still_ he’d dug himself out—Mark said, “Fence.”

Donghyuck kept his saber on the wall.

He’d hung it there like some kind of sick memorabilia.

The next words were punctured out of him. “Why do you have that?”

A confused breathy sound. “What do you mean?”

Just looking at it threw a hook into Mark’s mouth, drawing him helplessly close. He knew its weight. Could recall the way he could make skin burst open, effortless, like unfolding a letter into ribbons. The last time he’d held it—

“Don’t.”

Mark tore his fingers back.

When did he cross the room?

“You don’t know how to use that. Can’t have you hurting yourself.” Donghyuck’s voice sounded distant. “You don’t have to flatter me, you know. You truly dream of _fencing_?”

Words were difficult; Mark’s mouth was swimming with all the wrong things. “It’s always been—a dream of mine.”

When he found the courage to look at Donghyuck again there was a light of recognition there. “A pastry chef’s son. Fencing,” Donghyuck pronounced. “Outrageous.” But he smiled, like it wasn’t at all.

“Isn’t it? I think… I think that’s what makes it so compelling.” Mark swallowed. “I love proving people wrong. It’s like a _disease_ , heh.”

Donghyuck looked at him like he was waking up. “Sungchan,” he called, tipping his head back and parting his full mouth. “Another.”

Obediently, Mark fetched him another one. This time, Donghyuck’s fingers circled Mark’s wrist as he tasted one slowly. His stomach swirled with a cocktail of aroused and baffled—and then more aroused, when a wet brush of Donghyuck’s tongue grazed his fingertip. Mark ripped his hand back with a gasp, feeling like the fish Doyoung had filleted this morning—all its insides floundering on a wet tile. The half-eaten cookie fell to the carpet.

“Hey,” Donghyuck cried, “I was eating that!”

Before Mark could lose the rest of his faculties, he pulled out the letter from his pocket and shoved it between them. And then he wished he hadn’t.

Donghyuck’s eyes dulled when he saw the seal. He twisted back towards the window, pulling his knees to his chest.

“The treats were delightful, Sungchan. I think I’ve had enough today.”

Mark knew a dismissal when he heard one.

Regretfully, he left the letter on the bed.  
  


### Companion

Why did he ever come here? Why, and for what? Wasn’t it enough that he’d ruined every good thing when he was alive? It was clear that even in a different body Donghyuck would hate him. Dead or undead, Mark would find some way to destroy him.

To Doyoung’s relief, Mark stopped pestering him, although he looked almost like he would miss it, saying, “No pies today?” Mark shook his head, smiling. It was decided, then: he would do his job well, for Sungchan’s sake, work to impress Doyoung and get into his good graces. And then he’d walk back to Averno himself. He would exorcise this place from his own ghost. And then, finally, _finally_ —he’d forget.

He was on his way to dispose of the waste bin when he turned and nearly collided into a student’s navy vest.

“Dong—” Mark coughed, when he realized. “Lord Donghyuck—I mean, Dong—”

“You didn’t see me today.”

Donghyuck didn’t look upset, but Mark could read what the tightness in his mouth meant anywhere.

He continued, “You didn’t see me yesterday either. Or the day before that. Did we run out of flour, or something?”

“Apologies,” Mark said. “I… thought you might’ve been sick of it.”

Donghyuck regarded him. He’d swept his hair today, and the small hairs on his chin were shaved. “Cookies,” he declared eventually.

Mark stared at him.

“Butter cookies. I want to eat them.” Donghyuck’s eyebrows rose, as if to say, _well?_

“I…” Mark flailed. He looked around for Doyoung, then remembered he was out selecting cheeses. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” It was almost a whine.

“Because I… don’t want to.” That, and if Donghyuck trapped him in his room one more time there was just no way Mark could keep his hands and mouth to himself.

“You don’t want to,” Donghyuck echoed slowly. And then understanding crawled into his face, finetuning it into something bright and sharp. He tongued the inside of his cheek. “Sungchan, ah… you’ll go far in this world. I know what you want.”

And then he pulled it out—Johnny’s letter—and waved it in the air. Mark, in fact, did not know what he wanted, but he let Donghyuck drag him by the wrist towards the nearest table anyway.

“How about you bake me butter cookies—and I’ll write to our dearest commander and tell him I’m ready to start my apprenticeship.” Mark’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. Donghyuck called for a pen and paper, which Mark hastily provided, dropping the bin to the side with abandon, his brain a dumbfounded loop of _butter cookies, butter cookie_ s. “On the one condition that I’m allowed to bring my _companion—_ ” and now he winked at Mark, like he was about to change his whole life and more, “in the corps. Well? You ready to defy the stars, Sungchan?”  
  


### Company

The pub buzzed with a kind of dizzying energy that made Averno’s version look like a paper cutout. Mark knew what Chenle felt, looking on with a relieved sort of expression as Donghyuck made brash claims and sloppy kissy faces at whoever was within reach—in this case, Jeno and Chenle—and drank his own weight in beer. It was almost like _Before_.

Chenle gripped Donghyuck’s wrist before he could down his fourth pint. “Whoa, easy. You’re not drinking water.”

“Not that he knows what that’s like either,” Mark murmured. Chenle raised his eyebrows. Simultaneously, Jeno and Jisung crowed with laughter.

“He’d rather drink piss,” agreed Jaemin, beside him.

“It’s a miracle he’s still alive,” Renjun added.

“How’d you know that?” Donghyuck wiped his mouth and looked at him.

Mark was not very good at this, he realized. “Um,” he said.

“You watching me, Sungchan?” Donghyuck said, with a pleased glint that did dangerous things to Mark’s gut. “I like that.”

His knee pressed into Mark’s under the table. And because Mark was a lesser man, he did not retract his leg.

“So, _Mr. Baker_ ,” Jeno began, leaning towards him in that full-bodied smiling way of his, and Mark wanted so badly to have his old body back, if only to haul Jeno in his arms and tease him for the small hairs in his chin; baby was finally growing a real man’s _stache._ Even Jisung was on his way there. And then he realized they probably still hated him, for the way he acted in his last days, so quickly tossed that wish away. Jeno said, “Donghyuck tells me you wish to _fence_?”

Renjun’s small face brightened. “A Blakesley fighter!”

Chenle passed him a cold pint. “There are other necessary talents for a man, but to each his own.”

“Stop, you’re not allowed to be mean to my friend,” Donghyuck demanded. “Unlike all of us, Sungchan has _dreams_ of his own. Do you know what that is, Chenle? Dreams?” He pinched Chenle’s cheek. “And no, it’s not inheriting your mother’s estate—”

“I’ll kill you.”

“I’ll kill _you_.”

Chenle clipped his arm around his neck until Donghyuck thumped the table in surrender.

“But Johnny never takes more than one apprentice,” Jeno said, unblinking.

“That was my condition,” Donghyuck said, massaging his throat. “Not joining the corps unless Sungchan comes, or he can wait another year for someone young and shiny to present the king. He doesn’t have to train him— _I’ll_ teach Sungchan everything I know. See? A _loophole_.” He jabbed, victorious, like he’d unravelled an impossible knot. “There has to be enough space under the sky for both of us. Isn’t that right, Sungchan?”

Six pairs of eyes all turned to him. Mark swallowed, nodding. “Well, the sky _is_ big. We’re all here under it, aren’t we? Like… literally. Haha.”

“Hyuck, where’d you find this one? He’s funny,” Jaemin decided, and Mark nearly snorted into his beer; he didn’t think any of them had thought Mark Lee _funny_. “We could use more of it. Wish you could go to school with us. We’d teach you how to use all of Donghyuck’s tricks against him.”

“We like to use his head as target practice,” Renjun said. “It’s _tiny_. Makes it challenging.”

“Shut your face, Huang.”

“He’s all bark but no bite too,” Jisung said.

“I’ll bite _your_ cute little face off, how about that?”

While they jostled each other over their beers, Chenle grabbed Mark’s sleeve. “When Johnny’s not looking, do us all a favor and push Donghyuck off a cliff for me, won’t you?”

“Hey!” Donghyuck retorted against their blustering laughter—because he didn’t see what Mark saw and wished for himself so badly all his teeth ached: the way their souls grew still and warm, like strange animals basking in each others’ company.  
  


### The Last Normal Day

Before Donghyuck would leave Blakesely, it was decided they would cut class and see the ocean.

This required a rather complicated diversion, but it wasn’t the first time they’d executed something like this: they would split up as soon as astronomy ended; one had to take the staircase in the left wing, the other through the backdoor in the dirty kitchen, another through the shortcut through the seniors’ dorms, while the last one had to sprint as fast as they could out the front entrance when the guard wasn’t looking ( _Sungchan_ , Donghyuck volunteered him cheerily, _look at the legs on him!_ ). They would recoup at the stables, take two horses, and escape. In and out, before morning arrived the next day.

Donghyuck was... loudly impressed with how unbothered Sungchan had been the whole trip. As they formed a line and one by one dove through the underwater canal that funneled into the hidden beach, Donghyuck turned to him and said with a frown, “It’s almost like you’ve been here before.”

“Is it,” Mark laughed.

“Not up to your standards?” he said cheekily, then pulled his shirt off and dove in.

 _Well, I discovered this place_ , Mark wanted to say. _And you fucked me, right here, too._

The moment he thought it, Mark knew it would be a long, maddening day.

Of all the places to sit and watch the waves while their clothes dried, Donghyuck wanted to sit _here_ , under the gentle sloping shadow the cave provided, while Jeno and Chenle went hunting for seashells and the rest of the boys jumped into the water.

Beside him, Donghyuck stretched his toes into the sunlight.

A single bead of seawater unclipped itself from his bare shoulder and trickled down his arm. Mark wished Donghyuck was losing his mind too.

The memory felt like teeth, like the sharp spine of the cave Mark had tripped and scraped his palms on along the way here:

 _Like this_ — _if it’s like this_ , Donghyuck gasped, sliding hot and maddening between his legs, _it’s not a sin._ Who were they kidding; sex was sex—worse if it was between people like them—but there was no other way to a survive a storm, even with all of Donghyuck’s drunk bravado; in the end, they’d left the chateau only to hide out here, stumbling out of their clothes and pressing each other against the cold cave wall; outside, the sky tore open with rain, the sound like a thousand daggers clattering to the earth, loud enough Mark could allow the secret, severed sounds to fall from his mouth.

It wasn’t at all like Mina’s coquettish moans. Mark sounded like a shipwreck.

 _Not a sin, yeah_ , Mark agreed, _so, God, keep going,_ awed at the sight of Donghyuck’s dark pleasure ruining his thighs, the scent of his earth-sweat and the wounded way he was breathing against his nape, like it hurt to line up Mark’s back to his chest, and all Mark had to do was tighten his legs and bare his neck and let Donghyuck take and take. In here, too: a storm. It would sweep through him, if Mark wasn’t careful.

“This part, I haven’t been,” Mark said, pointedly. The sand under him grew dark as he dripped water. He looked at Donghyuck’s face and waited—for what?

In the memory, the imprint of knees on the sand, Donghyuck cleaving him in half. This Donghyuck only smiled.

“My grandmother,” Donghyuck began, pulling a knee to his chest, and Mark ignored the prickle of disappointment, “she was a baker too, you know? When I came of age, she gave me her apron and baked me a butter cake. She always hoped I’d make something for myself. A life.” He regarded his toes. “What was your coming of age present?”

 _A rapier._ “Same thing,” Mark said.

Donghyuck looked at him. His hair, when it began to dry, had a tendency to curl at the ends. “It’s not too late to say no, you know. I’m aware I may have… strong-armed you into this.”

Mark shook his head. “You’ve given me the chance of a lifetime. Anyone would want this.” Donghyuck nodded, like he’d rehearsed this lie himself a thousand times. Then he was peering into his face.

“What happened there?”

“Oh, this—?” Mark patted his hair flat. “Kitchen accident. Slipped on eggs.”

Donghyuck didn’t laugh, the way most people did. Instead, he leaned back on his arms and angled his face so that his marred cheek caught the light. “Look, look—we’re the same. See?”

Mark felt his chest thin. “I’m so sorry,” he gasped without thinking, and Donghyuck’s face crumpled in amusement.

“What for?” he said. “I look ghastly with it, don’t I?”

“You’re beautiful,” Mark said.

Donghyuck’s face stuttered. His mouth rested in a half-part, his eyebrows adrift, but no words came. Mark was so embarrassed he jerked his gaze ahead, where the boys were playing chicken fight in the water and he could avoid Donghyuck’s face and the last living memory of them not trying to kill each other. _Averno take me now,_ Mark thought, _now would be a great time._

“You didn’t tell me yours,” Mark spoke, all mangled eventually, when he realized Donghyuck wouldn’t.

“My what?”

“You know. What you do. When you dream.” He added: “If you weren’t born a posh little shit doomed to swing sharp sticks for the rest of your life, that is.”

“I didn’t realize this was a two-way interview, Sungchan,” Donghyuck said airily, and Mark was struck with the discovery that Donghyuck didn’t _know_. He’d told Mark once, that it didn’t matter, when they were going to get locked away in a marriage neither of them wanted or sent off to one of the king imaginary wars. “Either way, we are going to die by someone else’s hand, so _please_ —stop talking, you’re giving me a migraine,” he’d gasped, cupping their bodies together, his face so close he’d given all his secrets away.

That was then. _This_ Donghyuck was a stranger, tracing lines idly in the sand.

Jeno and Chenle were approaching in the distance, sharing the weight of a pail full of shells.

“But…” Donghyuck began, sounding thoughtful, “if I had to live another life, I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad. To find myself here again, talking with you.”  
  


### A Good Friend

After each of them crawled quietly back into their quarters, trailing sand and sea salt, only Mark and Chenle were left. They shut Donghyuck’s door behind them and crept slowly down the dim hallway.

Ahead of him, Chenle said, “Thank you.” It was almost a murmur. “For helping me. I’ve been trying to get rid of him for _ages_ —who knew all it would take was just another brand of crazy for him to come around. Are you quite sure about this?

“I am. And Donghyuck loves to fight,” Mark said. “I don’t understand why he wouldn’t want to leave.”

“Well, _obviously_ he hasn’t been the same, since Mark died,” Chenle tossed back.

Mark stiffened; it was the first time he’d heard of his disappearance—or death, in this case—from his own friends. Well, _Donghyuck’s_ friends. He’d forgotten to simulate this discussion, let alone practice it.

So: “How’d you know he’s dead?”

Chenle stopped, flattened himself against the wall and peered around the corner. It was clear. Moving again, he said, “Hurts less to think he’s dead than if he ran off to start a life somewhere without us. I like to think we’re not so easy to forget. Donghyuck believes he’s alive, though.”

There were no words good enough for that. “And you?”

The silhouette of Chenle’s cheek lifted. “Hyung was always clumsy. I bet he slipped off a cliff on horseback, or something. Broke his neck. Nice and quick.”

“That’s—morbid.”

“You’ll keep him safe, won’t you?” Chenle said, suddenly stopping in the middle of the hallway. Mark nearly collided into him. It was almost pitch-black here, all the candles blown out, but Mark could feel the anxiety burning off of him like a fever. “It’ll be different, in the corps. So you’ll bring him back to us.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Of course.”

Chenle nodded. “Good.”

“You’re a good friend,” Mark said, before he could stop himself. It was easier and easier to say what he’d meant, now that he wasn’t himself.

Chenle scoffed. He patted him on the shoulder and drifted down the staircase. “Can’t lose another one. Night, Sungchan. Try not to fall in love with him, okay? I’ll cut your hands off.”

“I’m—”

“It’s a joke.” Chenle waved from the bottom of the steps, the smile pooling into his eyes. “Be safe, both of you. And write back or Renjun will throw a fit. I’ll see you soon.”  
  


### A Place For Both of Us

Mark knew it would be difficult to face Johnny again; once upon a time his friendship with the commander had been something of a good thing—until his father’s expectations skewed everything beyond repair.

Looking at him now, he braced himself for it: the cold in his hands, the stomach-twisting unease that paired Johnny’s measured gaze, but instead there was only regret.

Johnny was enjoying his coffee in the dining hall when Donghyuck came to greet him formally as an apprentice for the very first time. Johnny shooed the maids away, refusing the sandwiches they’d prepared on their best platters. Instead of the burnished ornamental sword Mark had seen princes wear, Johnny only had his battle saber by his hip. The brass hilt was worn and chipped with time.

“Do you know why I only take one apprentice?” Johnny asked them. Mark stood stiffly, unmoving. Beside him, Donghyuck went solemn.

“I know the seats at court are—few,” he said carefully.

“Well, that is correct, but the real reason—” Johnny took one sip, then another. And then, “—is that my last two apprentices killed each other.”

 _Well_ , Mark thought.

Johnny continued, hunting down any hesitation in their expressions, “To see who was stronger. Last year, to this academy’s great misfortune—it happened again. I am grateful, however, that this year, I do not have to start from scratch.”

Then he looked at Donghyuck, who possessed a startlingly low amount of self-preservation and did not look away. Mark wondered if this was Johnny being cruel, until the commander smiled, wide and open and _Johnny_. “I don’t plan for a repeat of that. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

He looked at Sungchan, then at Donghyuck. Something old and heavy seemed to strain between them.

“Sungchan has no desire to best me in anything, John,” Donghyuck drawled. “He’s had no formal training, but he’s here to make his own path. Aren’t you, Sungchan?”

Mark bowed low. He tried to keep his voice level: “Someone once told me there was enough room under this sky for all of us.”

When he straightened, Donghyuck had turned the heady scope of his eyes at him. The weight of it made Mark’s chest lurch; it would not settle.

Johnny lifted his mug Donghyuck’s way. “And you? Is this what you want?”

“More than I can ever say,” Donghyuck said, still looking straight at Mark.

Johnny smiled, light and relieved. “Well. We’re all in agreement then. l’ll meet you at the stables at noon. Say your goodbyes, pack only what’s necessary. We have two day’s worth of travel ahead of us. Oh, and Donghyuck—if you call me _John_ again I’ll cut your tongue out.”

“Aye aye.”  
  


### The Violence He Was Raised For

Sungchan didn’t own much, so Mark packed a single bag and hurried ahead with a lightness in his steps.

He couldn’t stop dwelling on the way Donghyuck’s eyes had lingered—how, more and more, they began to resemble the way he used to look. Donghyuck _wanted_ him; or at least, wanted _Sungchan_ , enough to drag him towards the edge of a blade and try again. Mark had punished Donghyuck enough; if this was what Donghyuck wanted, then Mark would want it for him, too.

That was how Mark found him. Crossing the courtyard, Mark’s steps slowed, slowed, and then—stopped.

There was his father, sitting on a bench.

He had a faraway look in his eye as he watched farm animals graze. All the water in Mark’s body turned to ice.

He had expected to see him, sooner or later, though he hoped he wouldn’t have to. Living in Sungchan’s head, in his body, tilted the world in a way that made the old ways of living feel strange and ridiculous, the anger he’d mothered relinquished in the company of Donghyuck’s new dream, how it eclipsed everything.

Now, all of it was flooding out. And he was right back where he started.

His first thought: he could sprint past him. His father had always said he was quick. One of the only things he’d given Mark credit for—quick feet, quick eyes, wrists like a tempest—a perfect chess piece for war. He would dazzle Johnny first. Then the corps. And then the king would have him. And then, the war, who would have everyone, in the end.

In the memory, Donghyuck was begging, _please don’t be angry_ , chasing him down the staircase, in the rare moment where he couldn’t keep up; Mark’s heels like thunderclap, when the letter revealed Lee Donghyuck’s name, and not his own. _Please_ , Donghyuck said, _I did not want it._

 _Don’t you understand? That makes it worse._ The anger ripped through him like a violent weather, startling them both. Mark’s body was someone else’s now. Donghyuck winced and pushed back from the wall where Mark shoved him against. He reached for Mark’s wrists.

 _But I know you_ — _even_ you _don’t want it!_

Mark tore his hands back. It was cruel to say it, but he did anyway: _you know he will kill me_ , he said, and there was no happiness to be found, no satisfaction, in the horror that twisted Donghyuck’s face. _He’ll kill me, and it’ll all be your fault._

Donghyuck was crying. _I won’t let him touch you. I won’t_ — _I promise_ — _we can be free of this. We can leave, today—_

Mark shook his head. He’d been raised for this, and now there was nothing left. _There was nothing left._ He was quick; Donghyuck had only wiped his tears and Mark had already slipped into an elsewhere.

There had been nowhere else to go but _away_ ; Mark took his horse and hid in the first pub he found. He knew no one who dared visit this town. All the rumors of bandits, of shapeshifters—witches who would eat your soul out—Mark didn’t care. He was already dead. And maybe it was precisely because of that that he’d allowed himself to lower his guard. The drinks here made him pliant. Laughter came easy. And for a brief moment, surrounded by kindred monsters, he believed Donghyuck—that maybe this wasn’t the end, and there could be a future, after all—enough of a breach to let the handsome man named _Xiaojun_ trace his bottom lip and ask, _Can I?_ And of course Mark had said yes. It was nice; to be desired, to be a soft thing, to let the boy inside him unravel and bay its teeth and bite back in this shoddy pub where no one would bat an eye. Time inched sideways, and he’d lost nothing yet.

He left the pub with the stranger’s kiss on his lips and the maddening need to hold Donghyuck close and say, _yes_ , again and again, _let’s go, just you and me, where do we go first—_

There was a blur and a crack, and then Mark was on the ground. There was earth in his mouth. The right side of his face hurt slowly and then all at once where someone had slammed him to the floor.

He was quick, but not enough _—_ he couldn’t parse the words hurled into his ears, only that he knew these men were sent by his father, and that this was punishment _—_ for everything, for the audacity to lose and still want to live _—_ a sob fell out his mouth in tangled threads _—this is what you like, isn’t it?—_ someone pushed his trousers down _—this is what happens when you fail your duty—_ Mark thrashed, rolled, and kicked hard _—_ felt something give, loud enough to attract travelers nearby _—_ his attackers fleeing into trees _—_

He was quick, was unscathed, but they had done all they needed to destroy a boy _—_ and ruined boys ruin other boys, so watch: the violence he was raised for _—_ wobbling into the duel room the next day _—quickly, before the guards see!—_ the conditions, his father said, with a proud, assessing glance his way, are _this and this and this—_ Mark sinking into a stance while he bartered his future on a blade— _allez!—_ Donghyuck’s wide, pleading eyes _—you don’t want this—_ their blades _screeching_ into a kiss _—I don’t know what I want—_ Mark’s mind, adrift, elsewhere _—this is madness, listen to me—_ the body honed, deadened, ready to be made myth _—_ the air honeyed with metal _—_ Donghyuck tripping, the cost of a second _—everything destroyed in a matter of minutes—_

Mark’s father stared infinitely into the field. He looked older and frailer than he’d ever been.

Mark was quick.

He could end it here.

All in a second.

Snap his neck.

Fetch a carving knife.

Press it gently into his back, like a prayer.

It would be swift. He could make it.

In the memory, the flicker of Donghyuck’s face caught his blade, pleading its age-old question: _will we always do what was done to us?_

The question drying under his nails. Redredred—

Something gave in his chest, and Mark _ran_. He was quick. He didn’t look back.  
  


### An Interlude

“Are you okay?” Donghyuck finally asked, as they camped for the night at the next town, in a small tent by the stables. Johnny was out, sending a letter ahead of them to prepare their lodgings. The air was thick with rain and horse manure. “You’ve been… quiet.”

“I’m nervous,” Mark said, turning to face him on the cot.

It wasn’t the complete truth, but it wasn’t a complete lie, either. Whatever this was—this thing he’d built—terrified him. Eventually, he would have to return all he’d borrowed. But now he knew why he was here. What mattered most. He would live, and give Donghyuck everything. That would be his penance.

“Keep a secret?” Mark said. “I don’t like horses.”

This, at least, was truth. Donghyuck deserved more of those. He would try harder.

Donghyuck’s deadpan was unbelieving. “ _Horses_. Is that why you cling to me so much when we ride? You’re very strange,” he said, and in that moment of dejavu Mark missed Averno so badly; death, his old friend—he would return gratefully.

Mark sat up, pulled out a cloth from his bag and unwrapped it. “I brought you these. For the trip.” Donghyuck’s eyes grew wide; Mark had baked these shortbread cookies himself and was proud of it just a normal amount. “I hope you like them?”

“Sungchan,” Donghyuck whined, slowly sitting up. “You keep saving my life.”

They ate in silence. Outside the tent the world was still, for once.

“Trade your secret for one of mine,” Donghyuck began. His eyes were down, and oddly enough, his cheeks went dark. “You being here—it makes me feel brave.”

Mark’s throat closed into a fist.

“Thank you. For pestering me with pie that day.” Donghyuck reached over his lap to squeeze Mark’s hand; his thumb traced a half-moon over his palm. “I’m glad I met you.”

He’d return everything to Averno, eventually, but _this_ —right here—was his. This memory, he would keep. “And I you.”  
  


### The Boys in the Cave

The boys in the cave were not fighting, though it was possible they would mistake it for that, too. Who could blame them? They only knew touch in the syntax of force, were taught that flinching from the blade was worse than the blade itself.

In the dark, the boys fumbled for their hands. And then they looked for their mouths. And when they found their mouths, they chased their tongues to the edge of their own bodies, fell over, then saved themselves: catching the doomed plummet on their tongues like rain, so that when one of them leaned over the dearth for a kiss, the other boy clenched his eyes shut, their nakedness to real to bear—and it _was_ fighting, just another one of its dirty rivers, until it wasn’t—the boy’s hand trailing down the other one’s back, guiding it home, and then it was simply _dancing,_ two bodies sighing, _please_ , and _,_ _let me remember this,_ a strange prayer, for they had not yet learned the words; _let me keep this tenderness, despite despite despite despite  
  
_

### The Boy Who Greeted Death

Donghyuck brought Mark’s saber.

Mark could say nothing of it, of course. He could only let the sight of his old hilt on Donghyuck’s hip drive him to a slow maddening state while they entered the corps’ site. The location Johnny commanded was high up in the mountains, fringed by a thick wildforest that shielded cabins by the dozens, each housing at least fifteen men.

Mark expected more of Donghyuck’s brand of posh boys, but these men were a different breed. They passed a group jogging in a straight line, then another cleaning out stables, and finally another wrestling bare-chested on the grass. Their bodies, wiry and well-oiled, gleamed under the sun.

It didn’t feel at all like the academy back home. Even a church spire would’ve comforted him. Instead, there was only an austerity that muscled into silence, everywhere the hushed wisp of their souls, pulled taut like a viola’s string and still as Averno itself.

“When do we train?” Donghyuck asked.

Johnny seemed to find this ridiculous.

“Train? Not until a month, at the very least. You’ll learn first, you watch. Or they will eat you alive, and they won’t think twice of it,” he said, and for once there was no humor in it. “I would hate to go all the way back to find a new one, don’t you agree?”

The strange, bogged down feeling stayed as Mark trailed after Donghyuck, who decided to spend his first day watching the public sparring sessions. They didn’t use wooden swords in the corps. The concept of _practice_ was nonexistent.

By the second day they’d watched a group of men hauling a defeated member across the field, one hand over his eye, biting back a scream. Red trailed down the inside of his wrist.

By the third, Mark could read the motto sewn into all their uniforms. _Vir fortis contemnit mortem._ The brave man despises death. So that was what the smell was; all of them here were afraid of dying. It came up everywhere—like weeds, choking out everything else.

Mark had been that boy, too, once. But now he was ready to ask.

Donghyuck said, “See their faces, Sunghchan? In some duels, you only have to flinch, and it’d be over. You’d have lost. You have to be unmovable, or the bastard will—”

“Do you hate him?” Mark said. “The one who did that to you?”

It took a moment for the question to settle. “Ah. Well. That’s a question.” And then he shifted on the bench and looked at Sungchan conspiratorially; in the sunlight, the scar on his cheek was lit up on all angles, and it looked almost grotesque now, a deep jagged crack. “Thinking of avenging my honor, are you?”

“Always,” Mark said.

Donghyuck bristled. He didn’t respond. After a while, he confessed, his voice a stone, “No, I don’t hate him. There was nothing to forgive.”

Mark stared at him. He imagined ripping off Sungchan’s mask, saying, _surprise, it’s me! How about now?_ if only it wouldn’t have been the end of it, like a mermaid turning back to seafoam.

Donghyuck eyes were busy, tracking the match. “Look, Sungchan—watch the man with the moustache. See how he wiggled out of that corner? That’s how you should do it. You should never let them push you back far enough.”

Mark’s fists curled. “Even—after everything?”

A raucous cheer. Someone had won, but Mark couldn’t make out who—they were both grimacing in pain. The crowd rearranged itself until two fighters took to the center, posing their sabers at each other, unblinking.

“Well, I suppose, if we had more time, I would’ve hated him, eventually,” Donghyuck was saying. “If you’d only heard Mark-hyung jokes…. and he always had a _terrible_ temper.”

It was awful to hear that sentence—even more so that he wanted to hear it again, just to hear Donghyuck say his name. _Mark-hyung_. He was right _there_.

Donghyuck said, “We were rivals, well—everyone else wanted us to be, I suppose. And we were just so... perfectly capable of giving each other white hairs, you see? So yes. Perhaps, in some alternate future. But I didn’t hate him. Not for anything in the world.”

The indignation was rushing out before he could stop it. “But he almost _killed_ you—”

Donghyuck shook his head. “When he challenged me, I saw it. He had this look in his eye. Like he was ready to die,” and now something unbearable filled his face, twisting his voice into something tight and terrible. “He wanted to die, by _my_ hand. For that—for that I’ll never forgive him.” He swallowed, and then slowly—knit an excruciating smile back on his face in the same minute. “Watch his footwork—do you see it? Come on, we should come closer—”  
  


### Happy

In the mornings, Mark woke Donghyuck by running a finger up his cheek and watching the early flutter of his lashes and the way his eyes brightened when he saw him there. “Morning,” Donghyuck would say, pushing his cheek into his palm like a cat. And then he would drowsily dress, walk out the door, and stumble back a day and a half later something bitter, all serrated edge.

“Are you alright?”

“Mm,” was the only thing he would say.

Though Sungchan was allowed to attend all physical classes—wrestling, running, and of course, fencing, mostly to shadow Donghyuck’s matches and tend to his small gashes—anything other than that, he was barred. What Johnny had done, bringing a mere kitchen boy to the corps, was to say the least, not a favorite amongst the members. At the end of the day, Sungchan was no duke, not even an earl. There was a limit to how many rules Johnny could bend.

“Sorry, Sungchannie,” Donghyuck would say, during the socials and political meetings where he dressed his best and brought his ceremonial sword instead of Mark’s. In those nights, he would crawl back in their shared room once he was freed to put his feet on Sungchan’s lap and read him tactical books aloud. And in the mornings, Donghyuck would haul him out into the sun-streaked grass to practice the stances.

“It’s stupid, really—“ Donghyuck groaned, as Mark feigned patheticness just to feel Donghyuck’s fingers correct the angle of his hips. “What did he think I brought a _companion_ for?”

Mark blushed.

Donghyuck continued, his too-warm hand on the small of Mark’s back. “Johnny, unfortunately, is still too much steeped in tradition. You being here—well, we’re breaking all the rules, by having you here.” An impish grin. “But just give me a few months, and I’ll have you impress the king himself.”

Mark beamed. He raised his rapier, a spare. “How do I do that again?”

Donghyuck demonstrated the lunge. When Mark replicated it flawlessly, Donghyuck’s eyes glittered.

It seemed to give him enormous joy watching Sungchan transform. Mark didn’t think he’d heard him laugh as often as he did when Mark was alive. This—pledging his second life to Donghyuck—felt like breathing.

“Are you very happy, Sungchan?”

“I am,” Mark said.

“Good,” Donghyuck said, eyes faraway. “That’s good.”  
  


### The Decent Thing

Another political gathering. Rumors of a city in conflict. Beside him, Donghyuck’s bed was vacant and had been for two nights. Mark stayed on his own, tossing Donghyuck’s copy of _Basic_ _Combat_ to the side to stare listlessly at the ceiling.

When he turned his head to Donghyuck’s cot again—to imagine him there, perhaps—he noticed it: the journal.

For a moment, he considered doing the decent thing. He could be decent, right? But Donghyuck’s absence was weakening every good thing about him. Mark remembered the way Donghyuck’s face accommodated concentration while he scribbled something into it: his forehead smoothing out, a looseness in his plush mouth.

Crossing the room, Mark picked up the journal by its leather spine and parted the pages. And then he snorted. The first thing he saw was a badly rendered caricature of the Prince of Jilin; the comic strip featured Chenle’s enlarged head as a helium balloon crowding the sky, arguing with a stork on its way to deliver the next batch of human shitheads to the world. The next few were dedicated to Jeno, then Renjun, then the rest of the gang, doing something Mark could not make out but looked heinous enough to make him snicker. Scripture filled the next—rows of dry, uninspired verses stacked over each other (their scripture classes mandated hours of copying text into their journals.) Then, a very, very fat cat. And then, on a wrinkled page—

Mark nearly dropped the journal.

_Mark,_

He threw his eyes to the door, then back at the page.

The writing looked haphazard, like it had been finished in an enraged daze.  
  


### The Letter, Part One

_You coward. You piss me off so much. I ought to just kill you myself before your stupidity kills me. You stopped talking to us, we taught, alright, Lee’s done with games, he’s got some growing up to do. Why didn’t you tell me you got flogged? If you told your stupid old man you had accomplices, you could’ve shared the punishment with us and then you wouldn’t be walking all funny, wouldn’t you, you unbearable dunderheaded bastard?_

_And I know nothing happened between you and Mina. What a riot. You want to know the truth? I don’t care about “finding a fine lady to settle down with” now or ever. I wouldn’t do that to any woman, so you can stop this madness. I have no interest in participating in a make-believe rivalry or upholding the good Blakesley tradition of bedding women for sport._

_Lord above, I’m still so angry. I’m so angry I’ve been writing you letters_ — _letters!_ — _as if I don’t see your ugly mug every day. Taeil said they’d help with my anger issues. You’ve ruined me, Lee._

_You know what ruins me the most?_

_You don’t tell me anything. And I’ve seen you ugly and I’ve seen you beautiful, which, arguably, is when you come with my mouth on you, but I digress. If you let me, I think I could surprise you. You’re not the only one stuck in this godless gutter._

_What do you think about anyway, in that big head of yours? Do you ever dream?  
  
_

### The Letter, Part Two

_I’m afraid they were right, darling. You and I—we’re done for._

_We’re too capable of cruelty. This place, it’ll kill us, one day, if we’re not careful._

_I think of the sea a lot. I think a little sunlight would do your skin good. What do you say?  
  
_

### The Letter, Part Three

_~~I’m scared your father will turn you against me  
  
~~ _

### The Letter, Part Four

_I’ll spell it out all nicely for you, as it seems that night in the cave did nothing for us. How did the scripture go again? You’re my shitty pearl, and I’m the fool with no common sense who keeps scrounging around smelly seaside cartels looking to barter all that I owned to have that thing in my pocket. Or something like that. It sounded better in my head._

_Do you understand now?_

_What I’d give up?  
  
_

### The Letter, Part Five

_Fuck you. You’re not allowed to be dead. Mark Lee can’t die early. That’s my job.  
  
_

### The End

“Entertaining yourself?” Donghyuck said.

Mark jerked back. The journal slipped from his hands and dropped into the sheets, where it fell shut on one side.

Donghyuck was leaning his ornamental sword on the wall before the door clicked closed behind him. He crossed the room in three strides to snatch the journal back. There was steel in his eyes. He said nothing as he turned and dropped it inside his bag.

“Sorry, I _—”_ Mark floundered, mustering the words. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, you shouldn’t have,” Donghyuck echoed. A pause. “Well? Hope it was amusing enough to start your morning?”

“It’s well into the afternoon.”

Donghyuck exhaled sharply.

“Lord, I’m sorry _—_ I didn’t mean to _—_ ” and then Mark paused, noticing now the streak of mud by Donghyuck’s jaw; it matched the color of his boots, its thick miasmic scent. “It’s just _—_ you were gone. Much longer than usual.”

“Took a short detour,” Donghyuck said, bending to loosen his boot laces, “to the morgue nearby.”

Mark’s eyes followed him as Donghyuck toed off his boots. “The morgue? For what?”

Donghyuck ripped the tunic off his neck and threw it to the ground. “You want me to spell it out for you?” There was a weariness tapering off of him, worsening his slouch.

Finally, Donghyuck met his eyes.

“I went looking to see,” Donghyuck began, “if anyone identified a body belonging to _Mark Lee_.” A long pause. Mark’s own emotions felt like a distant cloud, drifting by him too late. And then: “Obviously, no one had.”

“How long have you _—_ ” Mark shook his head. He didn’t know what he was asking. Was this why Donghyuck kept skipping classes? Waking up at odd hours and sleeping through the days, only to return to their cot smelling like grime and decay? Mark said, “You shouldn’t… _waste_ your time like this. You won’t find him.”

Donghyuck’s eyes flashed. “And why not?”

Mark stood there, wringing his hands. “If he’s nowhere to be found, then perhaps—perhaps he doesn’t want to be.”

Donghyuck squared his shoulders; even with Sungchan’s full height, Mark felt dwarfed. The words folded and folded themselves in his mouth.

“You’re just like all of them,” Donghyuck said tonelessly. He turned around. “Of course. I’m going to bed.”

“Have you eaten, at least?”

“Lost my appetite.”

“You should eat _—_ especially after a long _—_ ”

“You my mother, Sungchan?”

Mark’s tongue retreated. “I don’t… like seeing you like this.”

“Like _what_?”

Donghyuck’s chest was heaving. Mark murmured, “Unhappy.”

Laughter—dry and callous.

“Did I fool you?”

“Johnny chose you—” Mark’s throat closed. “I thought _this_ was what you wanted.”

“Are you daft? I’m in the _corps_. It was never about what I _wanted_ ,” Donghyuck spat. “All I’ve ever wanted _—_ ”

He went quiet.

“Eat, please,” Mark begged.

Donghyuck turned, and that small movement rearranged Mark’s mental furniture enough that he saw no risk in closing the distance between them, reaching for Donghyuck’s elbow to say, “If Mark saw you now, he wouldn’t _—”_

“Sungchan.” Donghyuck’s voice rose; a threat. He shrugged Mark’s hand away then pushed ahead; each step forward had Mark staggering back—one, two, three, four, five, until his knees hit the edge of his own cot and folded, the bed groaning with his sudden weight. Mark’s heart floundered in his mouth. In one second Donghyuck had walled himself in and in the next he was much too close, perching one knee on one side of Mark’s hips, and then the other, the hinge of his mouth parted the way it did when aiming for a point, the soft, vulnerable part of a body.

“Sungchan.” Donghyuck’s voice was an edge. “Why won’t you ever kiss me?”

“I _—”_

Donghyuck’s knees ran alongside Mark’s outer thighs. The bed creaked as Donghyuck drew closer.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me,” Donghyuck murmured. “You hover. You watch.” He tilted his chin up. “But nothing else.”

“I'm—” On his lap, Mark’s hands felt bereft. They opened, closed.

An amused breathy puff. “And you don’t deny it.”

Donghyuck turned his chin, then pressed a slow, questioning kiss on his cheek that had Mark’s eyes clenching shut, his body shuddering with memory. Immediately his hands knew what to do: flying to feel Donghyuck’s hair, his jaw. Their cheeks brushed. Too close. This was too close.

As Donghyuck pulled away to look at his face, Mark traced the line of his scar from wing-tip to tail and felt the guilt spear him anew.

“Words, Sungchan,” Donghyuck said. “You’re allowed to use them.”

“I truly am sorry,” Mark choked out. Donghyuck’s laughter shook the air between them.

“You keep apologizing _—”_

Mark pushed forward, stealing the words into his own mouth. Donghyuck made a wounded sound and let his weight push them over, Donghyuck’s hands cradling Mark’s head as they hit the bed. He kissed him, and Donghyuck kissed back, a frantic slide Mark had practiced before. Donghyuck was predictable; when Mark gripped his hair and pulled he knew the kind of sound he would make, knew that Donghyuck’s back would curl like this, chasing the hand and the hurt it offered. Mark found his shoulders, pushed his jacket off, his shirt, wanting to feel skin or he would die, he was sure of it. Donghyuck offered all of it up easily, only to cling back against Mark’s skin to scape his teeth everywhere—Mark’s ear, his thimbled throat, down the sweep of his collarbones, every soft hidden thing.

“God, you _—_ you’re _—”_ Mark gripped Donghyuck’s hips and pressed his knee against the swell of him.

“Fuck,” Donghyuck cried, his torso wrenched back was if pulled by some invisible string.

In this unbearable distance, the scar between his right rib looked alive, just like the day Mark had gifted it to him; a pale white line, rimmed with a sickly-pink. Mark pressed his shaking hand against it—blasphemy, to be able to do this and not be struck down—feeling his pulse thrash wildly until Donghyuck snatched his wrist and pinned it beside his head so he could lick a hot line up his neck, his jaw.

“Careful where you touch,” he said, as Mark shook like a leaf. Donghyuck’s tongue swirled into his ear, coating it.

The air had thinned now, and it was crackling with each breath like paper. He could feel Donghyuck grow heavy against him. Mark lifted his hips, while Donghyuck bore down, and they bucked against each other again and again, one sweet weave of motion, just like they used to, their bodies cupping heat.

“Donghyuck _—_ ”

“ _Please_ ,” Donghyuck groaned. When did his voice get like that? “Come on, Mark _—_ ”

Donghyuck froze first before Mark did.

In the next moment Donghyuck was ripping his body back, nearly tripping in a hurry to get back on his feet. There was horror on his face.

Mark pushed up on his elbows. “Donghyuck,” he said. All the heat in the room was sucked out. All there was left now was the cold, gaping berth between them.

“Donghyuck,” he tried again. “It’s _—_ ”

“Do you want to use the bathroom?”

“Yes,” Mark squeaked, then scurried off.  
  


### The Duel

Mark whittled an hour and more in the shower. All the fevered desire that had possessed him was slowly swirling down the drain. He was nothing now but a wet, weighed-down body.

But Donghyuck had kissed him.

Donghyuck had called his name.

When he left the bathroom, Donghyuck was gone, like he expected. Mark stepped into his clothes, dried his hair, and sat in his bed until the windows grew heavy with sunset. And then he put his shoes on and left the room.

How stupid could he be? It was clear now, that Donghyuck had continued to carry the weight of Mark’s absence all the way here. It was under his eyes, in the sometimes-madness that flashed when Donghyuck demonstrated how to fight— _like this, straight through the fucker, okay, Sungchan?_ —the impression of his soul, almost like Averno had passed by him some indeterminate time ago to take a big bite and leave only bones. He thought of Donghyuck’s letter, saying, _darling_ , _we’re done for._

He shouldn’t have done this. He hadn’t fixed anything.

It was decided then. For real this time, he would forget—and in doing so let Donghyuck move on and succeed in this new life, whatever the cost. Whether that meant going back to the kitchen or telling Donghyuck the truth and losing everything.

But first, he would apologize for the kiss.

Mark made his rounds, but found Donghyuck wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in any of the meeting rooms either. The courtyard was empty. The stables, too.

Mark cursed, then sprinted further past the empty cabins, the knowledge of where Donghyuck would be arriving like a bolt. At the end of the long pavilion, there were corps members lingering by the entrance. Ignoring their quizzical glares, Mark pushed past them and into the area, just in time to see Donghyuck crunch his elbow into another man’s nose—the man staggering backwards, flailing, but he was too slow—and Donghyuck’s arm was snapping forward, back leg propelling him forward to land the tip of his saber into the man’s shoulder.

The cloth over it darkened.

“Next!” Donghyuck roared.

The air crackled with murmuring. Mark cursed, weaving himself through the thickening crowd. Everyone here wore the signifying maroon blazer of the corps, their seal branding them on their backs—all except Donghyuck, with his plain newcomer’s shirt and Mark’s very own saber. It was difficult to decide whether it was the gash on his cheek or the slightly-manic tilt to his grin that marked him as one of theirs.

“ _Donghyuck_ ,” Mark tried, but it was lost to the sound of the crowd’s _ahhhhs_.

Donghyuck had felled another man. And then another. And then another. The familiar metallic screech, forging onwards its own pervasive rhythm, filled Mark with dread as people piled to watch him.

“Hey,” someone urged. Somehow the murmurs had transformed to cheers. After a ten second delay, Mark turned; Donghyuck had won with a backwards jump and a creative twist of the wrist, slashing the man’s forearm. “Where’s your gear?”

“I’m with him—” Mark pointed, explaining. “Uh, with Johnny’s apprentice.”

“Yes, but you can only stay if you spar,” the man said impatiently. He gestured towards a corner, where a banner had been hung over a rack of sabers. Again, it boasted the motto: _Vir fortis contemnit mortem_. “Fighters only.”

Mark left, pointedly pulled the first saber from the wall, and walked back.

“Alright.”

The man frowned. “I’ve seen you around. You’re new here. Are you quite sure you can fight, kid?”

“What?”

“Can you _fight_?”

“Oh, sorry.” He was busy tracking Donghyuck’s stance; he knew how Donghyuck fought, and this was not how: he hacked forward like a fugitive, his wrists too fast and his feet too heavy, and he wasn't looking his opponents in the eye. Mark could feel it: the erratic pulse of his soul, spread thin and spiking everywhere—there was no fear in it. Not even a ghost. “Yes _—_ I can fight.”

“No one is responsible if you lose an eye. Not even me, and I’m the doctor.”

Donghyuck had doubled his wicked two-step dance, steel blurring as he cackled and broke skin and side-stepped another lunge to his thigh. Mark winced. “Right.”

The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pointed to the other end of the room. “The rounds start there.”

Begrudgingly, Mark walked away and found himself a first match. The man was two feet taller, had a long, upturned nose, wiry hair, and black eyes. Mark tested the saber’s weight in his grip. They nodded at each other.

_En garde!_

Mark’s body folded into a stance.

Across the room, Donghyuck barked with a laugh, _that’s it? Next!_

Before Mark could turn to watch, the call came: _Prêts? Allez!_

—and, as expected, the man aimed for his throat.

Mark saw it coming; in an old, faraway life, Mark Lee’s opponents had mistaken his quiet for weakness. Mark blocked the blow in one breath, averted it, then pushed forward through the opening. The tip whooshed under the man’s nose as he quickly peeled his torso back, but it was too late—he’d flinched. The phantom pain burst in his face.

Win _—_ and all in a second.

“Thank you,” Mark murmured, as the small crowd appraised him with stunned claps. His eyes drifted automatically to the other end of the room, where Donghyuck was circling another opponent, only now there was a bright splash of blood on his wrist that Mark knew was not his own.

Mark’s next match lasted longer, if only because he kept getting distracted. This, he realized, was a mistake; if the size of the crowd watching was anything to go by, Mark had done an extreme disrespect to his opponent. The man had doubled down on his blows so Mark had no choice but to keep his heels quick, throwing his arm back as a counterbalance each time he blocked a strike to the face.

And the man must’ve wanted to land one quite badly, from the way his face grew red.

Their sabers collided—somewhere, Donghyuck’s voice cried, _fuck, that was close!_ —and Mark flew back, gritting his teeth at the way his arm burned, his fingers cramping, sweat stinging at his eyes. The man cornered him in one spot, so Mark worked to make himself small, bracing the full torrent of it. The man’s face grew so dark it looked like it would burst. And then, at the inevitable weary spasm in his fingers: Mark turned his wrist, scoping a spot by the man’s shoulder, the blade like lightning looking to strike—and landed.

 _Touche_.

The man’s eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as he regarded the broken skin. The air burst with muddled cheers.

This time, Donghyuck noticed him.

“Sungchan?” Mark heard, turning.

Donghyuck was walking towards him. His saber trailed his side. Specks of blood had dried to dust his cheek like a parody of freckles. When did their matches meet in the middle?

“We shouldn’t be here,” Mark insisted quickly. “Johnny wouldn’t—”

“That was Maxim,” Donghyuck said. His brows were knitted together.

“What?”

“Maxim, Fairchilde’s _best_ ,” Donghyuck pressed. Mark stared for a few more moments, until he recalled the name. _Fairchilde_ ; a rival academy. Donghyuck looked spooked. “And you… beat him.”

A new crowd was merging, from both ends of the room. Maxim was slumped by a corner while a doctor tended fretfully to his injury. Mark met his eyes, and suddenly the air was so oppressive in here he wanted nothing more than to tug Donghyuck out of the place.

“I looked for you,” Mark said, as if to explain everything. “I wanted to apologize—”

“Spar with me.”

Mark recoiled. “What?”

“Come on. Spar with me.”

Mark shook his head. “No.”

But Donghyuck was already walking away, folding into a stance. A bored-looking umpire, after herding onlookers on either side, gestured for them to prepare.

“Donghyuck—”

_En garde!_

“Oh, come on,” Donghyuck yelled with a lazy twirl of his blade. His grin was a white gash. “Show me your training, Sungchan!”

_Pretz. Allez!_

Donghyuck leapt forward, with the same fevered energy. Mark knew this dance, had done it before. First a flurry of attacks, to intimidate your opponent. If that didn’t work—if they weren’t _dead_ —or if they were unfazed, or, inconveniently, faster than you—mirror them. When Mark shifted to the right, Donghyuck did too, closing the semi-circle. When Mark receded, he did the same. Donghyuck fought like a crow pecking at a body slowly, waiting for it to snap.

“You’re amazing, Sungchan,” Donghyuck gasped, shifting the arrangement of his fingers on his hilt. “Only a few weeks and you’ve—” Mark brought his saber up, blocking the lunge meant for his torso; their blades _sang_ , “—managed to learn all my tricks.” Already, Donghyuck was out of breath. Between the two of them, it looked like Donghyuck would break first, and he knew it. Mark could feel the burn of his impatience. Could predict what would happen next like it was a reel playing before his own eyes: Donghyuck’s back leg would power him forward into a deep lunge one second too early—Mark would parry, sweep his blade in an arc—Donghyuck, frantic, would trip backwards, leaping, his stomach curving to avoid the pendulum swing—his legs would fall, too slow—and if Mark would step forward now, tugged onwards by memory, by training, by the voice of his father saying, _aim true now_ , _boy_ , nothing would be able to stop the cruel twist of his wrist, tilting the tip upwards, into the soft give of a boy’s belly, falling from gravity—

Mark dropped his saber. It clattered to the floor.

In front of him, Donghyuck’s feet thudded to the ground. His face was bloodless. Mark watched it turn first from fear, to horror—then recognition.

“I—” Mark began, then fled the room.  
  


### Maybe the Sea

“Wait _—_ ” he heard Donghyuck gasp.

Outside, the sunset had almost fully subsided. Mark ran towards the broken fracture of trees, towards a violent purpling sky, and kept running, until he couldn’t. A hand ripped his shirt back until his ankle folded, and both their bodies careened towards the grass and landed in a heap.

Mark was up in the next second.

“Wait—” Donghyuck cried. “ _Stop running from me!_ ”

Mark stopped. The hurt in Donghyuck’s voice gripped him into stillness. When he turned, Donghyuck’s face was a vision of fury.

“Did they send you? The school? Are you—are you _spying_ on me?”

Mark shook his head.

Donghyuck pushed himself to his feet, swaying. Each breath rabbited away from him.

“Then—do you know him? Do you know Mark Lee? Do you know where he is?”

Again—quiet and damned—Mark shook his head.

“Then— _who are you?_ ” Donghyuck hollered, the force of it breaking the last vowel apart for a wet sob to slip free.

Mark stared at the wretched remains of his own heart and felt, strangely, the static inside his brain slowly settle. _Oh_ , he realized. This was why. What he’d crawled out of Averno for.

“You need to leave,” Mark said slowly. “You need to go back home.”

“What?”

“Or not home—maybe not. Just not here. Some nowhere town. Beside the sea. Yes, that would be good.”

“Sungchan, what—”

“Promise me. _Leave_. It’s not too late. You don’t have to kill yourself over some stupid posh boys’ sport. Open a bakeshop, disappear, please, Donghyuck, I don’t care if the king needs you—it’s not worth all this—”

“You’re not making any sense—”

“You’re just like _me_ now,” Mark whimpered. “Can’t you see? Look at you. Crawling around your belly, asking for forgiveness, _destroying_ yourself. You were right.” The hurt buried its cold beak in his chest and pulled things out. Mark shook his head. “We’re done for.”

Donghyuck’s eyes grew wide. His mouth parted, then closed.

“You pissed me off so much too,” Mark continued. “You and your perfect personality, and your perfect friends, and your perfect fencing. I had to work twice as hard if I wanted to be your friend without _—_ well, wanting to off myself or, or, or, hide away. It’s fine now. Well, _not_ fine, but all things considering _—_ what I’m trying to say is... I don’t hate you.” Mark was shaking his head now, chucking softly. “How could I? From the very beginning, I was done for. But I was yours too. I shouldn’t have run.”

Mark allowed himself two steps closer. And then he allowed himself more: feeling the skin on Donghyuck’s wrist, swollen from the duels and speckled with dried blood. He traced one finger over the small bird-bone there before testing the weight of his hand in his. Silent, Donghyuck let him.

Somewhere, in the earth, an old friend was stirring. _Is it time?_

Mark continued, “Do you understand? You need to promise me, because I don’t think Sungchan is going to let me have a second go in this lifetime—he’s nice, I wish you could meet him—properly, I mean—”

“ _What_ are you talking about—”

“Will you stop asking questions and just _listen_ —can’t you see I’m trying to bide us time?” He smiled. Already, Mark could feel it: the small door in his soul unlatching, the bolts shifting free. “And I’m sorry that I lied—it was Doyoung all along. Not me. He’s been doing everything. Even the cookies. Oh, but that last one, I made myself, by the way. So. Anyway! You should promote him to head chef, when you get back.”

“Will you be there?” Donghyuck, in turn, had grabbed Mark’s wrist, and with each second Mark spoke the shock in his face was slowly replaced by color. “When I get back?”

“I don’t know,” Mark said truthfully.

“What do you mean, _I don’t know_? How can you not know?”

“Well, it’s easy to lose things down there and, I'm not really sure...? How long it'll take for me to—"  
  
There was a distant yell, and in the next moment the world went black. When he opened his eyes again he was on the grass, the feeling in his legs completely gone and the mottled sky behind Donghyuck—and Donghyuck’s face, hanging over him, horrified. “Oh wow,” Mark managed. Right now Sungchan’s body felt riddled with tiny doors, and Averno’s hands—they were blooming leaves into them, a swathe of wet, welcoming earth.

_Is it time?_

_Is it time?_

“What’s happening?” Donghyuck cried.

“Turning to seafoam, I think. Like Ariel, in the stories, you know? Haha,” Mark tried weakly. “Don’t look at me like that. I broke some important natural law to see you, so now that you know, I can’t stay long. Look—I’m sorry. I think I want to live now. Will you forgive me?”

“I told you,” Donghyuck gasped, face twisting. “There was nothing—”

“ _Please_ ,” Mark said.

“Of course—of course, I forgive you, you stupid dunderheaded bastard, I forgave you a long time ago _—_ ” and the both of them shuddered, like speaking it had unblooded their hands, into a lineage where they had not yet hurt each other. “I forgive you, always, I’ve never once blamed you—”

“Thank you.”

Donghyuck gripped his collar. “Not even once, I never—do you understand?”

Mark nodded. “Do you still mean it? About the sea?”

“The sea?”

“We could go there. Somewhere far. Someplace I can live and not have to hurt you.” Mark thumbed Donghyuck’s trembling cheek. “That’s all I want.”

“I can’t cook,” Donghyuck said. “We’d—we'd die of thirst.”

“Mm. That’s true. But the waves at night—”

“The waves at night.”

Mark's eyes felt heavy. He smiled. “They’ll sound very pretty, I think.”

“I think so too,” Donghyuck smiled back, tremulous. “God, I’ve missed you. I’m _so_ confused.”

“I’ve missed you too. Oh,” he began, realizing; Averno prickled just behind the eyes. “I have to go now.”

Donghyuck’s face crumpled into a frown.“Where? _Where are you going?_ ” Then he grabbed Mark’s shirt, his jaw, his shoulder, squeezing hard enough to hurt if only everything wasn’t slowly trickling out. “Where will I find you? _Mark—_ ”

“No, no, I’ll find you. I mean, it’ll be a pain, and it might take a while, but I’ll get you. I promise,” Then, smiling into Averno’s doorstep, he looked back and said, “You’re my shitty pearl, too,” and let his soul slip free, like water falling from a tall height.  
  


### And Then _—_

Snow.

### The Cabin

“So—did you find what you came back for?”

“I did,” Mark said, greeting him by the door. “And you? Found out what you want to do?”

“It’s still a work-in-progress,” Sungchan confessed, sheepish. “I’ll have to live to figure out the rest.”  
  


### The Boy in the Bog

Somewhere, a boy rifled through the bones and shipwrecked forfeit for his own body.

He'd been working at it for a while.

 _Even after everything_ , the forest said, _you still want to live?_

“I do,” Mark said, grasping himself out, piece by waterlogged piece, like something to be gathered in someone’s arms come spring.

 _The audacity_ , Averno said, with a long-suffering sigh—then, because it was bad at goodbyes, pushed him finally out of the bog, back into the gasping earth and all its wet and fumbling and _alive_ —

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to tay for reading over this & helping me feel less freaked out about this story <3 also to lyssa & kc for helping me with medieval references & tolerating dumb shit like me asking "so what IS the sexiest sword to die by????" shoutout as well to babiemarkie for the burst of motivation after baiting me with fic if i finished this. lo & behold, we've ARRIVED BUD
> 
> find me on [twt!](https://twitter.com/prodjohnmark)


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